English spelling origin (OT?)

[Peter A. McGraw]

Sigh!  O.k., here goes:

But their, weird, either
Foreign, seize and neither,
Leisure, forfeit and height,
Science, abortifacient, [fill in the remaining 397 "cie" entries here]
And Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park
Are exceptions spelled right.

There, that should take care of it! :)

Peter Mc.

--On Thursday, December 12, 2002 1:44 PM -0500 "James E. Clapp"
<j.clapp at EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:

> For what it's worth, Random House Unabridged Dictionary on CD-ROM
> shows 8685 entries containing either "ie" or "ei", of which 73% are
> "ie".  Interestingly, that percentage holds (actually increases to
> 74%) following "c":  400 "cie" entries (from "abortifacient" to
> "Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park") vs. 139 entries
> containing "cei" (from "absolute ceiling" to "wide receiver").
> Those could be studied in detail to sort out the principles
> involved.



****************************************************************************
                               Peter A. McGraw
                   Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
                            pmcgraw at linfield.edu